Puck — January 29, 1879 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PUCK. NANCY LEE. ve 4 F all the melodies I know Heigho! heigho! Heigho! heigho! * There's none like Nancy Lee—Oh no! Heigho! heigho! Heigho! With nerves unstrang, I hear it sung, Wheie’er I be. ; ‘The whole day long that frightful song Is baunting me. E’en in my dreams I hear the screams of Nancy Lee. Heigho! heigho! Heigho! Cuorvs. That sailor's wife will be the death of me, Heigho! that song is killing me. ‘That sailor's wife will be the death of me, She'll be the death of more than me. Oh tell, ob tell me where to go! Heigho! heigho! Heigho! heigho! Is there a spot the sky below, Heigho! heigho! Heigho! ‘Where I can dwell a little spell?— Where I'll be free— From hearing hummed, and played, and strummed, In every key, The whole day long that wretched song of Nancy Lee ? Heigho! heigho! Heigho! (Ctorvs.) And now a word before I go, Heigho! heigho! Heigho! heigho! The wretch who wrote the song I know. Heigho! heigho! Heigho! His chance is slim, I'll lay for him On land and sea, V'll have his gore. Dll sing Te D., While fiends of hell the chorus yell of Nancy Lee. Oho! oho! boys ho! When he’s no,more Cuorus oF Fienps. We'll sing to you the song of Nancy Lee, Ho! ho! ho! ho! Ho! hot! bo! ho! We'll sing to you the song of Nancy Lee, We'll sing for all eternity. F.C. THE MAN OF CHEEK. 6¢ &\ ENTLEMEN, I am now introducing to your notiee a newand very valuable ~~ _article—staple as flour— money re- funded if it don't give satisfaction—” “Don't want it,” we said, turning back to the desk. “ That’s something, boss, you can’t tell much about till you see the article.” And he set his heavy carpet-bag down on the floor with a sup- pressed sigh of relief. ‘This here is Pratt’s Perennial Grease Extractor and Corn Salve, the family friend, and the marvel of the nine- teenth century—” “You can't sell anything here this after- noon,” ‘ What'll you bet I can't?” We turned round again and examined him. He was a short, well-built man, with a weather- beaten, brick-red face, small features, a mild blonde moustache, and an impudent dull blue eye. A stiff felt hat was cocked jauntily over his right eye. His clothes were shabby and thin for the weather; but their conscious and defiant poverty gave them a showy set that suggested that they would be new and handsome if they could; but that since this was not possible, they didn’t care a continental. It required only a moment to take this in; but he was not going to waste that moment. He went on steadily, the husky stridency of his professional tones filling the room and jarring on the ear like the filing of a saw. “ Pratt's Perennial Grease Extractor, sir, will take the stains out of anything from a pair of trousers to a soiled conscience, and leave ’em fresher 'n a daisy in spring, and in its capacity of Corn Salve it is good for corns, bunions, ingrowing-nails, callouses on the toes, and tubercles on the lungs. It has also been em- ployed with great success in the treatment of croup and varicose veins. Bein’ of purely vegetable ingrejents, it will not hurt the smallest child, and I have medical stiftkits from the most eminent doctors in Missouri, Nebraska, fowa, Wyoming, and all the other States and Territories, ’s well 's Canada, Jersey, and the whole European continent, to prove that it will do what I say every time and no mistake, The secret of its composition was dis- covered accidentally in Michigan, by an old woman, and—” “Sit down!” “An old woman, who, arisin’ early one morning—eh?” “Set down!” He looked at us like a man who has had to stand a great many bad jokes, and went on: “She fell down an’—no, I ain’t sittin’ down to-day. Don’t feel tired. Sat down last year. Did I tell you the price was only twenty-five cents—quarter of a dollar for the greatest boon—” “Will you sit down?” said we, in our most decided tone. ‘Never mind about Pratt's ointment; we'll take half-a-dozen boxes—" “What for?” “For the pleasure of your conversation.” “You can have that easier by not buyin’. So you want to hear about that old woman. Well, fur’s I recollect, she fell down in the woods and broke her—" “‘Never mind what she broke. That isn’t what we want to hear about, Did it ever occur to you that it implies a stupendous amount of gall in you to come into a man's office and talk him nearly to death to get him to buy your salve?” “The reflection has crossed my mind,” he responded. “Then,” said we, “will you kindly tell us why you do i?” “T will,” he answered, with a queer look in his pale blue eyes. ‘Did it ever occur to you that this ain’t exactly the ideel vocation for a decent man, neither in the particular of re- munerativeness nor in the pint of popular re- spect? Do you think that the end of a man’s spinal column is like the rudderpost of a ship, and that he takes kindly to bein’ kicked out of offices? I'm speakin’ of his ioral back-bone and his moral sternpost. Agents and canvas- sers don’t get kicked out of offices nowadays— not with the solid flesh and leather kick, that is. But to be hunted out like an Ishmaelite or a mangy purp—that hurts a man’s feelin’s wuss’n bootin’ his physical end. Yes, sir, his feclings —just them, Mebbe you think the average agent goes too long on gall to be able to afford the luxury of feelings? Well, feelings is like mushrooms in their style of growth—you under- stand me, sir. Pratt’s Grease Extractor and Corn Salve ain’t no relief to wounded feelings —but I want you to know, sir, they’re a blazin’ hereafter on pants and hoofs. And only twenty —well, you don’t take no interest in Pratt's little specialty. You want to interview me on the agent and canvasser business. It’s a nice, healthy business for a cast-iron alligator run by clock-work. But it’s rather wearin’ on humans. Me, frinstance. I average fifteen miles and forty-seven flights of stairs a day. I ain’t set down, before this, since six o'clock this morning. I've sold six boxes of the Ex- tractor and Salve to-day—sold ’em to you, ten minutes ago. I’ve been in thirteen offices this morning. Eight of 'em told me to git out. That's the regular form. ‘Three didn’t say nothin’, That's the next most popular style of treating a canvasser. Two guyed me—give me taffy. One wanted me to go to hell. I gener- ally strike one polite man a day; and you're the nearest approach to him this forenoon.” “Well, why do you do it, then?” “Why? Way?’ Well, sir, she’s paralectic, and not able to do a stroke of work sence the kid was born, jist fifteen year ago. Paralectic all that time, poor little gal.” “Your wife 2” “My wife, sir.” This was said with a certain simple pride; and then he relapsed into Rang- dog impudence. ‘She ain't got my failin’, neither; she can’t talk. I have to do the con- versational for the whole family. The paralexy don’t give her much chance to say anything— jest like the cussedness of the durn disease—to take a woman square in the meanest place. She makes out, though, to have a little talk with me when I come home at night. She thinks of what she’s goin’ to say all day—saves it up to say tome, Sometimes she gets kinder eager, and wants to say good bye to me, when I start out in the morning. But I won’t have none of that, ‘Ole gal,’ I tell her, ‘don’t you get con- versational now, or you won't have no chance to buzz your husband in the evenin’.’ So she holds in till night, and than she says, ‘How are you, Jake? I hope you ain't very tired?’ or some such composition. ’Tain’t very much; but it takes her about ten minutes to say it. Lord, it’s sad. I could talk the hinges off a hen-house door in that time, and sell a box of Extractor to the boss rooster. You probably regard me in the light of a gorgeous idiot. Jest you wait till you strike your woman, and see how easy a man blooms out into that style of maniac, and how dum well satisfied he is to stay so. Oh, you'll strike her some day—and mebbe you won’t have the luck to get her, like I did. I had to talk her into it. And, with all doo respect for you, sir, you’re only an amma- toor alongside of me, when it comes to light- ning-drill evolutions with the lower jaw.” There was a pause. Then he went on: “Yes, sir, it’s a fine business. So fine, I'm making it hereditary in my family. ‘Trainin’ up my daughter to it. ‘That’s the kid born sixteen years ago — pretty as the original pattern, I've that confidence in human nature, I've got her into the literature line and she’s chinning for a Cook-book and a Concordance to the Bible. The Concordance is slow; but the Cook-book and the Extractor between 'em do a little business; and I guess we'll be able to keep up our end agin paralaxy and other little drawbacks for a while yet. ‘The Extractor by itself, though, ain't equal to the burden of a family, Boon to a Sufferin’ World as it is, and supported, I think I may say, by the best talent in the way of cheek and chin; raw gall and cast-iron jaw, that the country affords. Well, I'm slidin’. Six boxes? Thank you, sir. Come in again? Well, no. You've got Grease Ex- tractor enough to last you some time. So long. And—oh—well—if you see anything young and good-looking and kinder modeled on the daisy principle, jest remember, will you, that she’s only in the literary line, and takes after her mother, and ain’t got her father’s gall.” And he slid. Lay not up for yourself riches upon earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and taxpayers break through and steal; but rather take stock in out-of-town corporations and be a pauper millionaire with no assets, comicbooks.com